The present invention relates to a particulate filter including a housing having therein a plurality of cylindrical, ceramic filter bodies that define within the housing a group of raw gas side channels and a group of pure gas side channels, with one group of channels formed by compartments within the housing and with the other group of channels formed by the interiors of the filter bodies.
A particulate filter of this type is disclosed in German DE 32 35 363 A1. In such known particulate filter, raw gas is delivered into the interiors of the filter bodies at one axial end of the filter. Thus, particulate matter such as soot that is filtered from the raw gas is deposited internally on the surfaces of the interiors of the filter bodies. Therefore, compressed clusters of soot are formed on the interior surfaces of the filter bodies, and such compressed clusters are difficult to clean or remove. Pure gas filters through the filter bodies and passes to the exterior compartments from which it is drawn off at an opposite axial end of the filter. In such an arrangement, the raw gas streams and the pure gas streams flow substantially parallel to one another and parallel to the longitudinal axes of the filter bodies. When viewed over the axial length of the filter bodies, this results in non-uniform gas flow conditions, and this can have a negative impact on the filtering function. Clusters that form in the interiors of the filter bodies not only are difficult to clean and remove, but also they increase zonally or locally resistance to gas flow.